Elul 5784 – Hilchos Teshuva 4: Teshuva on D’Rabbanans

כל מצות שבתורה בין עשה בין לא תעשה אם עבר אדם על אחת מהן בין בזדון בין בשגגה כשיעשה תשובה וישוב מחטאו חייב להתוודות לפני האל ברוך הוא.

Rambam speaking about teshuva only speaks about mitzvot d’oraitha. Doesn't say anything about mitzvot d’rabbanan. Now, one can legitimately raise the question whether or not the chiyuv teshuva on d'rabbanans would be mid'rabbanan or min ha-Torah, but it's klar, there's no, there's no room to discuss whether or not there's a chiyuv teshuva on d'rabbanans. And yet the Rambam doesn't mention it. He doesn't, he just speaks about כל מצוה שבתורה. So how does one, what do we make of that? So if you say like the Derashos ha-Ran, so then the teshuvaseinu b'tzideinu. When the Ramban in Sefer ha-Mitzvos famously asks on the Rambam that the Rambam makes every d’rabbanan into a d’oraitha by rooting everything in lo sasur, and yet clearly every d’rabbanan isn't a d’oraitha because you say safek d'rabbanan l’kulah, you're tole by d'rabbanans, and it doesn't make any sense that that's the way they stipulated l'chatchila that the d'rabbanan doesn't apply bemakom safek. So the Derashos ha-Ran says, no, that is the pshat in the Rambam. What the Ramban thinks is lo nisan l'hiomer is takeh true. The Rambam holds that every d’rabbanan is a d’oraitha, that every time a person violates an issur muktzah, so he's violating a d’oraitha of lo sasur. So if you say like that, so then there's no kasha. There is no such thing as something which is only a d’rabbanan. The Rav zecher tzaddik livracha didn't learn pshat like that in the Rambam. He didn't learn pshat that the Rambam thinks that every time you violate a d’rabbanan, you're violating a d’oraitha. He said, no, fundamentally he agrees with the Ramban that the only time you'd violate a d’oraitha is if you reject the authority of Chazal. But if a person acknowledges the authority of Chazal, but for whatever reason was over on the din, he's over on a d’rabbanan. So why doesn't the Rambam have teshuva by d'rabbanans? There is, maybe the most famous question here in the beginning of Hilchos Teshuva, is that the Rambam is describing teshuva as the back, as the context, as the backdrop, and he's talking about a chiyuv vidui. Also, clearly omer davar sheini. Later in Hilchos Teshuva, the Rambam in Perek He, when he talks about the ikkar of bechira chofshis, says that a person shouldn't even entertain for a fleeting moment notions of determinism.

אין לו מי שיכפהו ולא גוזר עליו ולא מי שמושכו אלא הוא מעצמו ומדעתו נוטה לאיזו דרך שירצה.

A person decides voluntarily what to do and does it. And now the Rambam goes on to explain a sequence of pesukim in Megillas Eichah. הוא שירמיהו אומר מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב. When a person does ra or tov, we'd like to blame the Ribbono Shel Olam for all our mistakes, but it's not like that. מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב. We're the ones who are responsible for whether or not we did ra or tov.

וכיון שכן הוא נמצא זה החוטא הוא הפסיד על עצמו ולפיכך ראוי לו לבכות ולקונן על מה שעשה.

Since we acted willingly and therefore have responsibility, it's ra'uy that we should cry and lament what we did. מה יתאונן אדם חי גבר על חטאו. That's the next pasuk. Vachazar ve'amar, the third pasuk in the sequence, Yirmiyahu HaNavi says, נחפשה דרכינו ונחקורה ונשובה עד ה'. Since again we have the capacity to act with free will and it was our misuse of that capacity which resulted in cheit, ראוי לנו לחזור בתשובה ולעזוב רשענו. It's ra'uy that we should do teshuva. The lashon ra'uy in the Rambam often, not always, but often appears with the sense of something which is self-evident, which is מוכח ומוכח מתוך הסברא. Something which is self-evident and is a chiyuv even without a pasuk. Similar to what the Gemara in Eruvin says that אלמלא נתנה תורה היינו למדים צניעות מחתול. The Gemara in Eruvin says that even if there was, even if we hadn't been given the Torah. So we could have and would have been expected to learn the principle of tzniyus from from the way a cat deals with its its waste, and we would have learned arayos miyonah. We would have learned that the yonah is monogamous, so we would have learned that. So what's clear in sevara is something which is מוכח ומוכח מתוך הסברא, a person is chayiv to do even if it's not a pasuk in Chumash, even as long as it's din hu sheyikasevu. The Rambam uses the lashon ra'uy that way in various contexts. For instance, in Perek Aleph of Hilchos Avodah Zarah, after he describes Avraham Avinu discovering Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so Avraham Avinu began polemicizing with the Bnei Kasdim,

והתחיל להודיע לעם שאין ראוי לעבוד אלא לאלוקי העולם, ולא ראוי להשתחוות ולהקריב ולנסך, וראוי לאבד ולשבר כל הצורות.

Ra'uy doesn't just mean something which is appropriate, it doesn't just mean that it's pas to serve Hashem and it's pas nisht to be oveid avodah zarah. That's not what ra'uy means here. It means that it's מוכח ומוכח מתוך הסברא. You have several examples like that. In the beginning of Hilchos Deios also, the way the Rambam uses ra'uy that way. So lechora what the Rambam is telling us is that the basic chiyuv teshuvah doesn't need a pasuk in Chumash. The basic chiyuv teshuvah is ראוי לנו לחזור בתשובה ולעזוב רשענו. That the mechayiv in teshuvah doesn't have to be a pasuk, you don't need a pasuk. It's so basic and so obvious and so self-evident. A person goes against ratzon Hashem, a person does something which is an aveirah, of course he's chayiv to do teshuvah. The Torah's chiddush is he has to be misvadeh. That's why the Rambam in Perek Aleph talks about viduy, that's the Torah's chiddush. כשיעשה תשובה וישוב מחטאו, again, that's מוכח ומוכח מתוך הסברא, the Torah has a chiddush that he has to be misvadeh. In our Al Cheit, in the fourth section after we finished the aleph-beis, so we say al chata'im and we have all the חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם עולה ויורד and this and that, and we also say על חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם מכת מרדות. If you take a look in the Rambam's Al Cheit, if you take a look in the Rambam's Al Cheit, so the Rambam has bechlal he has a shorter list than we have,

ועל חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם עשה ועל חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם לא תעשה שניתק לעשה,

vechulu vechulu. He doesn't have makas mardus. The Rambam doesn't say על חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם מכת מרדות. So lechora the pshat is like this. In פרק א הלכה א, the Rambam doesn't mention derabbanans because he's not talking about the chiyuv teshuvah. Of course there's a chiyuv teshuvah in derabbanans. לא יעלה על הדעת differently. The chiyuv teshuvah is the ra'uy lanu, and that applies to anything. If something is an aveirah, of course you have to do teshuvah. פרק א הלכה א is about a chiddush of viduy. The Rambam holds for whatever reason that that wasn't imposed in derabbanans, and that's why the Rambam, veharayah that the Rambam doesn't have in his Al Cheit, he doesn't have על חטאים שאנו חייבים עליהם מכת מרדות.